The Yapen rain forests cover Yapen Island and the smaller neighboring islands of Mios Num and Kurudu, which sit in Cenderawasih Bay within Indonesia's Papua Province, just north of the New Guinea mainland. Forests here grade from coastal strand and alluvial flats through hill forest to montane forest on a limestone-and-plutonic spine rising to about 1,430 meters; the shoreline is dominated by trees such as Terminalia catappa, Barringtonia asiatica, Calophyllum inophyllum, and Casuarina, the conifer Araucaria cunninghamii emerges in scattered mountain locations above 500 meters, and the New Guinea kauri Agathis labillardieri is among the ecoregion's trees. The climate is a humid tropical rainforest one, wet through the year with temperatures hovering near 26 degrees Celsius. Recognized as a Centre of Plant Diversity, the ecoregion has yielded recent botanical discoveries including eleven new species of Pandanus and a Begonia, and its fauna includes the northern cassowary as the largest of roughly 147 bird species; the Yapen Tengah Nature Reserve, covering about 590 square kilometers, anchors its protected areas. For gardeners, the native flora includes ornamental genera such as Pandanus, Begonia, and Calophyllum that are familiar in warm, frost-free planting.
Marker placed inside the RESOLVE 2017 polygon at 1.8°S, 136.2°E.
Climate snapshot for this ecoregion
°C
°F
Current zone range (2011–2040)
13b
Plotwright
CHELSA-derived typical winter month at this ecoregion's bbox grid.
Projected (2041–2070)
13b
Plotwright
Where the CHELSA models say the typical winter month is heading.
Average warming this ecoregion is on track for: +3.0°F by mid-century. SSP3-7.0 (current trajectory) · CHELSA v2.1 bio06 sampled across 10 of 10 points within this ecoregion's bounding box.
At a glance
Dominant biome
Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
Realm
Australasia
Approximate area
933 sq mi
Conservation tier
Nature Could Reach Half Protected (Dinerstein NNH 2)
About the tropical & subtropical moist broadleaf forests biome
Warm, wet, highly productive forests — including tropical rainforests — with closed canopies, near year-round growing seasons, and the richest terrestrial biodiversity on Earth. Low seasonality and high rainfall sustain dense, layered vegetation from canopy to forest floor.
Catalog plants suited to this ecoregion
No catalog plants intersect this ecoregion's zone range. As the catalog grows to cover this region's climate band, suggestions will surface here.
Collections for this ecoregion
No curated collection's plants all fit this ecoregion's zone range. We surface a collection only when every member would grow here — partial fits get filtered out rather than mislead. As the catalog and the curated set both grow, this section will fill in.
Related ecoregions
Other tropical & subtropical moist broadleaf forests ecoregions to explore: